Lenore Skomal: Book passage to future at the library

Lenore Skomal

April 11, 2013 12:01 AM

Lenore Skomal

April 11, 2013 12:01 AM

Hard for you to believe, I'm sure, but I was a painfully shy kid. Never a nerd and not smart enough to be an egghead, I think misfit better defined my self-definition. I consistently fought the discomforting feeling of not quite fitting in, socially, scholastically and even domestically. Wedged between siblings in a large family, I was one of those invisible middle kids, bookended on one side by outgoing and personable and on the other by cute and lovable.

Due to the almost complete displacement from my environment, I had to find a place where I did indeed fit. My haven was the library. To this day, there is a sacredness about it. I feel the most at home lost in the stacks, sitting cross-legged on the floor, pulling out books and thumbing gingerly through the pages of typed words.

The library's a sensory experience: hushed murmurs, pages cracking softly, the varied and biting smells of paper and dust jackets, and the density in the air that can only be described as knowledge. You know the feeling when you set foot in an environment that's steeped in wisdom, education and intellect. You just feel smarter being there.

That's how I felt as a child. Great writers and thinkers, artists and entertainers poured their words out onto pages, which made them my friends. I shared my afternoons with Margaret Mitchell, Harper Lee, Thornton Wilder and Tennessee Williams -- all of whom gave words to my feelings.

Eugene O'Neill comforted me when the chaos of my home drew me further inward. Edgar Allan Poe challenged me to smash the boundaries of my own invisible word fence, the one I built around my work to keep it safe from criticism.

Maturity ushered in Flannery O'Connor, the influential female essayist, and Cormac McCarthy, the master of word scarcity. I added them to my long list of writing pals, as their work shared more of their secrets than I'm sure they intended. Because that's the way it is with talented writers -- they lose a piece of themselves with every word they write.

The library of my youth has changed, as public libraries all over the country have.

No longer limited to merely housing books, they're redefining themselves, becoming hubs of information in all formats, drawing upon multiple sources and repositioning themselves as the gateway to the universe of knowledge.

Regardless of how they change and expand, for me the library will always be a place that everyone, even invisible kids, can call home.

Next week is National Library Week. Lenore Skomal is speaking at Blasco Library at 7 p.m. on Monday.